This invention relates generally to manufacturing management and, more specifically, to material tracking during manufacturing.
Production operations for the manufacturing of a product may use various sensitive materials having expiration dates, such as sealants, adhesives and paints. Current practice is to label the container of the sensitive material with the expiration date and place containers in freezers or flammable cabinets in production areas. To ensure expired materials are not used in production, personnel must check the expiration date labels prior to use and must periodically check freezers and cabinets to purge expired materials. To stock and replenish needed materials, personnel physically visit each storage unit and count remaining items to determine needed re-ordering quantities for that material.
The current process does not sufficiently prevent the use of expired material due to misplaced materials, unnoticed expired materials, and lack of discipline in checking storage units. Internal and external audits occasionally reveal expired material in freezers and cabinets. Lack of real time visibility and tracking of material usage results in inefficient use, extra costs, and excess material disposal.
Therefore, there exists an unmet need for a process and system that identifies expired material, prevents expired material use in production and tracks and optimizes purchase, usage, and disposal of sensitive materials.
The present invention provides a system and method for tracking sensitive materials. The system includes a radio frequency identification component and a reporting system. The radio frequency identification component includes frequency identification labels that are attached to container units of sensitive material. Each frequency identification label includes at least one of information about the material or identification information of the material within the corresponding container unit the label is attached to. The radio frequency identification component also includes one or more antenna for reading the information from the radio-frequency identification labels on each container at a storage unit. The reporting system receives at least a portion of the information read from the radio-frequency identification labels from the radio frequency identification system and generates at least one report based on the received information.
In one aspect of the invention, the frequency identification labels include expiration date information of the sensitive material within the container.
In another aspect of the invention, the reporting system generates an alert if the expiration date information indicates that the associated material is within predefined threshold values.
In still another aspect of the invention, one of the generated reports includes information about the status of sensitive materials in the manufacturing system and sends the generated report with the status of sensitive materials to a materials tracking agency.
In yet another aspect of the invention, the system includes a purchasing component that receives at least a portion of the information read from by the antenna and performs automatic purchasing and tracking of materials based on the received information. The automatic purchasing includes automatically sending a request to a supplier for more material based on the received information.
In still another aspect of the invention, storage units house the container units of sensitive materials. The antenna may be mounted near an opening of the storage unit and may be coupled, to an interior wall of the storage unit, to an interior base of the storage unit, or to a shelf of the storage unit.